Zhu Da, known as Bada Shanren, often used economical brushwork, large empty areas, and striking forms in his flower-and-bird paintings and landscapes. He lived through the Ming-Qing transition, and later interpretations often connect his art with his life. Particular images still require careful reading; not every brushstroke should be taken as a political code.
Historical background
Zhu Da was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi, in 1626 and belonged to the extended Ming imperial family. The fall of the dynasty changed the circumstances of his life. He entered a Buddhist monastery and spent decades in the monastic community before returning to a secular artistic career. Later accounts describe eccentric behavior and sometimes interpret it as a means of avoiding political involvement. Those reports do not provide a secure modern diagnosis; they belong to the complex biographical tradition surrounding the artist.
He spent most of his early to mid-life in the Buddhist monkhood, returning to Nanchang when he was about fifty years old. He embarked on an artistic career soon after reentering secular life in 1680, producing works that featured his calligraphy, painting, and poetry. Most of the time, he painted simple subjects like flowers, plants, and animals and kept most of the given space empty. Toward the end of his life, he started painting more landscapes.
Some of his artwork were metaphors on the fall of the Ming dynasty and its failure after being destroyed by the Qing. His poems often included obscure references.
Monastic life
Following the Ming-Qing transition, Bada entered a Buddhist monastery west of Nanchang. His connection with the Ming imperial family made the new political environment particularly significant to his life. He spent about thirty years in the monastic community, studying Chan Buddhism as well as the styles of earlier painters and calligraphers. The monastery was therefore both a refuge within a changed political world and a setting for his artistic development. His later work drew on practices cultivated during those years.
Around 1680, Bada left the priesthood and refashioned himself as a professional painter and poet. He was dissatisfied with his monastic life all throughout the 1670s, during which he sought relationships outside the monastic order. He met the poet Qiu Lian and Qiu's father-in-law Hu Yitang in the early 1670s. Despite his abandonment of priestly duties, Bada was still influenced by Buddhist teachings and remained close friends with several Buddhist monks.
The Portrait of Geshan, painted in 1674, reflects Bada's refashioning from a monk to scholarly artist. According to Wang Fangyu, a scholar and collector of Bada Shanren's work, the straw hat and loose, long robes make Bada look more like a scholar than a monk.
Bada also remarried soon after returning to Nanchang in 1680 but within a few years became single, dissatisfied with the marriage. For a while, his paintings reflected his unhappiness from the failed marriage. During this time, Bada also showed signs of eccentric behavior. Many believed he was feigning madness to eschew political involvement. From 1684 onward, Bada mostly stayed put in Nanchang, devoting himself to painting and calligraphy, and in the mid-1690s built a painting studio.
Painting
Bada Shanren's earliest extant paintings were produced during his years in the Buddhist monastery where he practiced painting as a hobby. He painted according to the literati tradition, studying the styles of past painters like Shen Zhou and Xu Wei. The subject of his paintings were simple objects like flowers, fruits, and vegetables. From 1681 to 1684, Bada treated painting as an outlet for his emotions, particularly his dissatisfaction with his second marriage. He expanded his repertoire of subjects to include animals like birds and fish in addition to flowers and vegetables. His earliest surviving landscape paintings are dated to this period. From 1684 to 1690, Bada most frequently painted myna birds, lotuses, and rocks.
From 1690 to 1694, he shifted his attention to fish, which he often depicted alone at the center of an empty composition. Starting in 1693, landscapes became a major subject of his work.
The brushwork in Bada's paintings closely mirrored his calligraphy. The paintings from his Buddhist years featured strokes consisting of thin and strong lines – reflective of a calligraphic style modeled on Ouyang Xun's writing. His brushstrokes in the Ink Flowers handscroll, dated 1666, were rendered like the diagonal strokes of the kaishu script. He moved the brush as he did in his calligraphy: by first straightening the tip of the brush and moving slowly and then by lifting the brush and moving more rapidly in the flying white manner. Bada's paintings from 1689 and 1690 mirrored his newly established style of calligraphy, featuring vigorous brushstrokes.